Sunday, August 12, 2012

William L. Garner

Executed July 13, 2010 10:38 a.m. by Lethal Injection in Ohio

Summary:

After falling on an icy sidewalk, Addie
Mack went to the hospital emergency room to get checked out. At the
hospital, Garner snatched her purse from near a pay telephone, called a
cab, and directed the driver to her home address intending to steal
what he could from the home. Garner went through each room of the
apartment, including two bedrooms in which he noticed four girls and
two boys sleeping. While inside, one of the girls woke up and asked
Garner for a glass of water, which he gave her, and then he let the
child watch television for a few minutes before sending her back to
bed. He explained his presence in the apartment by telling her that he
ran into her mother at the hospital and she had sent him to check on
the children. Garner removed a number of items from the apartment,
including a television set, a VCR, a portable telephone, and a Sony
“boom box.” Garner put these items in the cab, telling the driver that
he and his girlfriend had a fight and that he was moving out his
belongings. Realizing the child could identify him, Garner went back
inside the apartment and set three fires. Two of the fires, set in the
mother’s unoccupied bedroom and another unoccupied bedroom, smoldered
but went out. The third fire was set on the living room couch. That
fire quickly consumed the living room and filled the entire apartment
with heavy smoke. Addie’s oldest son, Rod, was awakened by the smoke,
heard his sisters screaming in their room and saw fire in the hallway
outside his bedroom. Rod tried to get the other children out through a
bedroom window. He went first, out his bedroom window and sliding onto a
dormer over the front door, then down. But the other five children
aged 8-12, which included his three sisters, a cousin and a neighbor
boy who was spending the night, did not follow him and died inside.
Upon arrest, after finding the stolen items in his home, Garner
admitted entering the home and setting the fire, but said he thought the
children would escape.

Final Words:
Reading from a hand-written note held up by an official, Garner
apologized to the six family members of the victims and stated he was
“heartily sorry … my carelessness caused a great loss to many and if my
flesh gives you all some kind of peace, I want that for you. If this
will give you closure, I hope it will.” Garner thanked the state of
Ohio, his spiritual advisers and friend Stacy Evans who gave him a
clipping of her dreadlock to hold as he died. “I thought I’d never be
free, but I am free now.”

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — William Garner glanced
over at his niece, a soft smile breaking his face as the first of the
five syringes of a lethal drug were pumped into his arm at 10:21 a.m.
Tuesday in the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.

Garner, 37, who grew up with the name
“Peewee,” was the 382nd person to be executed in Ohio since the state
began executions in 1803. The state has an execution scheduled each
month through November.

Garner has spent nearly half his life on
death row after killing five children in an English Woods townhouse on
Jan. 26, 1992, when he set three fires to cover up a burglary.

Garner, however, appeared at peace with
his condemnation. If he was scared, he showed no sign. He turned his
head to the left, staring into the eyes of his niece Martisha Ross for
long periods.

While strapped to a wooden gurney, Garner
held a dreadlock of hair from a friend in his left hand and read from a
hand-written note held up by an official. He apologized to the six
family members of victims who were there to witness the execution,
separated from the killer by about four feet and a glass window. “If
this will give you closure, I hope it will,” he said. Garner thanked
the state of Ohio, his spiritual advisers and friend Stacy Evans who
gave him a clipping of her dreadlock to hold as he died. Garner’s
voice cracked once as he said his goodbyes, but he never lost his
composure. “I thought I’d never be free, but I am free now,” he said.

No one spoke as he was dying until the
warden broke the silence. “Time of death, 10:38 a.m.,” Warden Donald
Morgan called out when the curtain opened at 10:39 a.m. The people in
the three witness rooms remained silent as they were ushered out.

Garner was sentenced to death for killing
the children in the home of Addie Mack after he stole her purse from a
phone booth at University Hospital and broke into her apartment.
During the 40 minutes inside the witness rooms, Mack, who lost three
daughters in the fire, turned a few times to look at her son, Rod Mack,
the only one to survive the fire. About 10 anti-death penalty
advocates stood in the drizzling rain during the execution.

Up to the moment of his death, Garner,
who has an IQ of 76 and was considered borderline retarded, maintained
he never intended for the children to die, and was only trying to cover
up the fact that he stole a television set, a VCR, a boom box and
phone from the home. Rod Mack jumped from the window and was found
shivering in the snow when emergency crews arrived. He told the police
he heard his sisters screaming. The girls died huddled together.
Garner took a cab from the apartment to a United Dairy Farmers where he
bought Hawaiian Punch, a jelly cake and candy.

For his last meal at the Death House on
Monday, Garner also had Hawaiian Punch and an assortment of food that
included a Porterhouse steak, barbeque chicken and ribs, sweet potato
pie, fried shrimp and chocolate ice cream.

Garner declined the standard prison
breakfast Tuesday morning, as well as a sedative, in the hours before
his death. He spent the early morning hours with his mother, Patricia
Garner, his sister Lisa Ross, his friend Evans, spiritual leaders, the
defense counsel and his niece – the only person to witness his death on
his behalf. “He is finally at peace and that was very important,” his
older sister Ross said after his death. She said she hoped the family
members of sisters Denitra Satterwhite, 12, Deondra Freeman, 10, Mykia
Mack, 8; the girls’ cousin Markeca Mason, 11, and neighbor Richard
Gaines, also 11, could one day forgive him.

Marshandra Jackson, who lost her daughter
Markeca, quietly wept during the 40-minute process that started with
prep-work and the insertion of two shunts while Garner was in his
holding cell. The preparations were broadcast into the witness rooms
through video monitors. He then took 17 steps into the death chamber
and climbed on the gurney.

Garner arrived in Lucasville on Monday, a
place where he first was admitted to death row all those years ago
when the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility sent people to death by
the electric chair. The prison at the time was the only one in the
state to house death row inmates. Much has changed since then.

The electric chair has since been
replaced first with a lethal cocktail of drugs and then more recently
to the sole drug Thiopental Sodium. Garner, who sentenced shortly
after he turned 20, had been housed at the Mansfield Correctional
Facility since 1995, where he lived alone in a 94-square-foot cell.
When not in trouble, he was permitted out of his cell for up to 2½ hours
a day.

Garner found trouble, though. Reports
from the correction department say he was cited 13 times for
infractions ranging from having sex with inmates to throwing fluids on
workers to violent outbursts and fighting.

Garner and his twin Willie, who were born
on Sept. 26, 1972, went by the names Peewee and Pappy, respectively.
Garner suffered abuse and got into trouble early, court records show.
At the age of 5, he kicked a teacher and threw temper tantrums. Garner
was beaten by his mother and her boyfriends, as well as by a brother
who had sexually assaulted him, according to court records.

That brother was picked up on a warrant
Tuesday as he stood outside the prison walls before the execution. The
infraction was that he allegedly failed to register as a sex offender
in Hamilton County. Garner started getting in trouble with the law at
the age of 10. He failed the second-, fourth- and sixth-grades, court
records say. There were theft charges, criminal trespass and another
theft charge all before his 11th birthday. Many followed ranging from
breaking and entering, to assault to disorderly conduct.

“He was ready. Peewee had been ready,”
Ross said of her brother’s execution Tuesday. “… Through the years, we
prepared for this day.”

“Killer executed, but when isn’t certain;
Calling of death delayed for man who killed 5 kids in 1992,”by alan
Johnson. (Wednesday, July 14, 2010 02:51 AM)

LUCASVILLE, Ohio – William Garner may
have been ready to go, but his body wasn’t. The Cincinnati man who
killed five children by setting an apartment fire to cover up a
burglary succumbed to a lethal dose of thiopental sodium at 10:38 a.m.
yesterday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. But Garner, 37,
wasn’t pronounced dead until after an unusual 10-minute delay, during
which a curtain shielded his body from the view of witnesses and the
media in the prison Death House and an ancillary site.

Ernie L. Moore, director of the Ohio
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said later that when the
curtain was pulled – usually signaling the end of an execution and the
announcement of the time of death – the coroner said he heard “faint
heart sounds” even though there were “no other life signs.” Garner was
not dead, even though the fatal chemical had been flowing into his
veins for nine minutes.

The unexpected development triggered a
five-minute wait under prison protocol, Moore said. At that point,
behind the curtain, Garner’s body was re-checked for a heartbeat. This
time there was none; the curtain was opened, and the execution was
over. Prison officials said they may re-examine the procedure for
determining when the curtain is pulled and death is determined.

Rod Mack, the lone survivor of the fire
on Jan. 26, 1992, watched Garner’s execution, as did the parents of
several of the dead children. So many family members wanted to see
Garner die that prison officials set up a room where three witnesses
watched the execution on closed-circuit television. About 10:20 a.m.,
as the execution began, a storm that had been hanging over the southern
Ohio hills was unleashed. There were several loud claps of thunder,
and a heavy rain began pelting the prison roof.

Reading from a rambling hand-written
statement, Garner said he was “heartily sorry … my carelessness caused a
great lost (sic) to many and if my flesh gives you all some kind of
peace, I want that for you.” He thanked a long list of people,
including the state of Ohio, then said, “I’m free, thank God almighty,
I’m free now.”

None of the victims’ family members spoke
to the media afterward, but Lisa Ross, Garner’s sister, said her
brother “was at peace. He was ready to go.” Ross said “accidents
happen” and that she hopes people can forgive her brother.

Police and court records tell a very
different story about a man who tried to set fires in three places and
stole the telephone – all the while knowing there were six children in
the apartment. Garner even got one girl a glass of water and watched TV
with her for a while. Five of the children died of smoke inhalation:
Deondra Freeman, 10; Richard Gaines, 11; Markeca and Mykkila Mason, 11
and 8, respectively; and Denitra Satterwhite, 12. Mack, who was 13 at
the time, escaped by jumping out a window.

Records show Garner found a purse
belonging to Addie F. Mack in the emergency room of a Cincinnati
hospital. After locating her address, Garner took a cab to the
apartment, stole her television, VCR, telephone and boom box, then
tried to cover his tracks by setting fire to the couch and two other
spots in the apartment.

Garner ate nearly all of his last meal,
which included a porterhouse steak, fried shrimp, barbecued ribs, a
large salad, potato wedges, onion rings, sweet potato pie, chocolate
ice cream and Hawaiian Punch to drink.

He was the sixth Ohioan executed this year and the 39th since capital punishment resumed in 1999.

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — An Ohio man said he
was “heartily sorry” before he was executed Tuesday for the murders of
five children in a 1992 Cincinnati apartment fire he set in an attempt
to destroy evidence of a burglary. William Garner, 37, died by lethal
injection at 10:38 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.

As he lay on the execution table, Garner
held a dreadlock of hair from a female friend and read a lengthy final
statement from notebook paper held by the execution team leader,
thanking several people as well as the state of Ohio. “God bless
everyone who has been robbed in this procedure,” he said. “I thought
I’d never be free, but I’m free now.”

In the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 26, 1992,
Garner gained access to Addie Mack’s apartment after stealing keys from
her purse while she received care in a hospital emergency room. Six
children, ages 8 to 13, were at the apartment alone, and Garner knew
they were there when he threw a lit match onto a couch. Garner has
admitted setting the fire but said he thought the children would
escape. Only one, 13-year-old Rod Mack, made it out alive. Mack watched
the execution quietly with several others.

So many people wanted to witness the
execution on behalf of the young victims that the prison opened a
second viewing room, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said. Mack and
five others were accommodated in the witness room facing the execution
chamber, and another three watched on closed-circuit TV in the
spillover room, she said.

Garner spent his final hours watching
television and talking on the telephone with a friend and his twin
brother. He visited with his mother and other relatives, as well as
with spiritual advisers and his legal team, and took Holy Communion
about an hour and a half before the start of his execution.

Garner had said a secondary motivation
for setting the fire was to draw attention to the children’s squalid
living conditions. He told police that he had noticed the bedroom “full
of girls” and that one of them had asked him for water, which he
provided, according to a report by the Ohio Parole Board. He also said
he had been in another bedroom where the two boys slept.

His lawyers had argued that the death
sentences be set aside because Garner had developmental disabilities, a
limited IQ and a violent, abusive upbringing that caused him to
function on the level of a 14-year-old at the time of the deaths.

Garner is the sixth person executed in
Ohio this year and the 39th put to death by the state since it resumed
the practice in 1999.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, on the night of
January 25, 1992, Addie Mack slipped and fell on the icy sidewalk,
injuring herself. Addie Mack woke up her oldest son, Rod, and told him
she was going to the emergency room to get checked out. Rod went back
to sleep in the apartment where his three sisters were sleeping along
with a cousin and a neighbor boy who were both spending the night.

At the hospital, 19-year-old William
Garner snatched Addie’s purse from near a pay telephone in the
emergency room area. Inside the purse, Garner found food stamps, keys,
and the identification information of Addie F. Mack. Garner called a
cab and directed the driver to take him to the address that he found
inside the purse, an apartment at 1969 Knob Court in Cincinnati that
was Addie’s home, intending to steal whatever he found inside the
apartment.

Garner went inside Addie’s apartment
while the cab driver, Thomas J. Tolliver, waited outside. Garner went
through each room of the apartment, including two bedrooms in which he
noticed four girls and two boys sleeping. While Garner was inside, one
of the girls woke up and asked Garner for a glass of water, which he
gave her, and then he let the child watch television for a few minutes
before sending her back to bed. He explained his presence in the
apartment by telling her that he ran into her mother at the hospital
and she had sent him to check on the children.

Garner removed a number of items from the
apartment, including a television set, a VCR, a portable telephone,
and a Sony “boom box.” Garner put these items in the cab, telling the
driver that he and his girlfriend had a fight and that he was moving
out his belongings. Realizing the child could identify him, Garner went
back inside the apartment and set three fires. Two of the fires, set
in the mother’s unoccupied bedroom and another unoccupied bedroom,
smoldered but went out. The third fire was set on the living room
couch. That fire quickly consumed the living room and filled the entire
apartment with heavy smoke.

Addie’s oldest son, Rod, was awakened by
the smoke, heard his sisters screaming in their room and saw fire in
the hallway outside his bedroom. Rod tried to get the other children
out through a bedroom window. He went first, out his bedroom window and
sliding onto a dormer over the front door, then down, but the other
five children, ranging in age from 8 – 12, did not follow him and died
inside.

Garner left in the cab and directed
Tolliver to take him to a convenience store, where Tolliver waited
while Garner purchased several items. Garner then had Tolliver take him
home to 3250 Burnet Avenue. Tolliver helped Garner unload the cab and
carry everything into Garner’s home. Garner did not have enough cash to
pay the cab fare, but Tolliver accepted a television set as payment.
Based on information provided by two police officers in the area, the
police located Tolliver and interviewed him on the morning of January
26. Tolliver told the police that he had driven a man from the hospital
emergency room to 1969 Knob Court, waited while the man went inside
and returned with several items, driven the man to the convenience
store, and driven him to 3250 Burnet Avenue. The police showed Tolliver
still photographs from the convenience store’s surveillance tape, and
Tolliver identified his previous night’s fare based on the man’s
clothing. The police also showed Tolliver three photo arrays, two of
which contained photographs of Garner, and Tolliver identified Garner
as his passenger from the night before.

Based on the information provided by
Tolliver, police obtained a search warrant and searched the house at
3250 Burnet Avenue. Police recovered, among other things, a VCR, a Sony
“boom box,” a portable telephone, a pair of gloves, a set of keys
later identified as Mack’s, and copies of Mack’s children’s birth
certificates.

On February 3, 1992, Garner was charged
with five counts of aggravated murder, each with three death-penalty
specifications, one count of aggravated burglary, two counts of
aggravated arson, one count of theft, and one count of receiving
stolen property. On September 25, 1992, Garner pleaded no contest to
the charges of theft and receiving stolen property. The case proceeded
to trial on the remaining charges, and on October 1, 1992, a jury
convicted Garner on all counts and specifications. On October 16, after
a mitigation hearing, the jury found that the aggravating factors
outweighed the mitigating factors and recommended that Garner be
sentenced to death. On November 5, 1992, the state trial court accepted
the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Garner to death on each of the
five counts of aggravated murder. The trial court also sentenced
Garner to ten to twenty-five years in prison for aggravated burglary
and aggravated arson and two years in prison for theft and receiving
stolen property, to be served consecutively.